PH problem?

[jcarlilesiu]

Hey everybody, I recently got a 56 gallon for christmas, and have it up and running. All the species in my sig. are now inhabbiting the tank and doing well. I did a water test again last night to make sure a small ammonia spike was under control. Everything was good, ammonia-0 nitrite-0 nitrate-.05 PPM...

My question how ever is my PH. It is showing at 7.6, I don't think this is much to worry about, but it was consistantly at 7.0 - 7.2 when they inhabited my 10 Gallon. Why the rise? Is 7.6 acceptable, any advice or opinons is greatly appriciated

 

[dskidmore]

As a tank ages, the pH tends to drift downwards. You have a new tank, so therefore your pH more closely matches the tap water in your area. (Test your tap water to test my theory.) Unless one of your fish is showing signs of stress, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[malkore]

How often did you change water in the 10 gallon? And did you have all the same fish in that 10gallon?
CO2 from fish exhaling can build up and lower pH slightly. If you didn't do weekly water changes, your Kh was probably declining, leading to a lower pH as well, and less buffering ability against other things that lower or raise pH.

Even the kind of gravel in the old tank vs. new could do it.

The question here is: what is the Kh and pH of your tap water, after it's been left out overnight in a bucket to outgas CO2 from the pipes?

 

[jcarlilesiu]

I have never tested my PH right out of the tap. I will leave some out over night and test it tomorrow morning. As far as the fish and contents in the tank, its all exactly the same. Same setup in a bigger tank. I did however add a big plant, and some more gravel. All of the contents however were 'transplanted' to the bigger tank as the little one was tore down.